Solved: What to Do with A Dying Hard Drive

A dying hard drive is often preceded by noticeable symptoms such as a slowing computer, frequent freezes, blue/black screen of death, accumulating bad sectors, strange sounds, and S.M.A.R.T errors. If you're experiencing these issues, it's recommended to read the article about handling a dying hard drive, which provides guidance on self-checking and self-repairing the drive, as well as using comprehensive data recovery solutions from Qiling to rescue your data.

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To deal with a dying hard drive without causing data loss, follow the steps outlined on this page. These guides provide detailed instructions on how to handle a failing hard drive and prevent data loss, ensuring the safe transfer of your important files and data.

Workable Solutions	Step-by-step Troubleshooting
Fix 1. Recover data from hard drive	If a hard drive is inaccessible, recover data from...Full steps
Fix 2. Back up hard drive	The hard drive slows down but works as normal...Full steps
Fix 3. Replace corrupted hard drive	The hard drive corrupted with bad sectors...Full steps
Fix 4. Revive a dying hard drive	The hard drive is dying, recover data to...Full steps

The average lifespan of a stationary hard drive is around 5-10 years, but can be reduced to 3-5 years with excessive temperature, humidity, and motion variations. Regular cleaning and proper handling can help extend its lifespan.

A hard drive that's failing will take a long time to start up and may cause file corruption, allowing you to make a backup before replacing it.

Six Signs Your Hard Drive Is Dying

Here is a list of symptoms and signs of a dying hard drive. And if you observed two of three signs on your computer, it means that your hard drive is probably dying.

1. The computer becomes extremely slow, frequently freezes, and is often stuck in the blue/black screen of death, making it unusable.

2. Hard drive overheating, making strange sounds, clicking noises.

3. Data loss, corrupted, files disappear and won't open.

4. Slow processing speed and startup.

5. Increasing bad sectors.

6. S.M.A.R.T errors.

If you are having the above-If you're experiencing all the listed symptoms, it's likely that your hard drive is almost dead. To further diagnose, you can check if your hard drive is dying or dead by following up on these steps.

Diagnose Hard Drive: Dying or Dead?

To check the S.M.A.R.T status on your hard drive, follow these tips: you can use the built-in command in Windows, called "chkdsk", to check the S.M.

Step 1: Press Windows+X keys and choose Command Prompt (Admin).

Step 2: Type: wmic diskdrive get status and press Enter.

Syntax explanation:

Status "OK": Everything is working properly on your hard drive.
Your hard drive is experiencing issues that may result in data loss or hardware failure, which could potentially render it unusable.

A dead hard drive can't be used to run Windows OS, and even a normal boot won't recognize it.

What are the disk status and how to check it? The disk status can be checked using the command "df -h" in the terminal.

What to Do with A Dying Hard Drive?

If your hard drive is dying, it's likely that it will fail soon. To prevent data loss, prioritize backing up your data. This should be your top priority.

STEP 1: Hard drive inaccessible? Recover data.

Losing data or file corruption is a common issue when a hard drive is nearing its end. To prevent further data loss, it's essential to act quickly and transfer existing data to a safe location, and also attempt to recover lost files from the dying hard drive as soon as possible.

If you failed to create a hard drive data backup, reliable data recovery software like Deep Data Recovery can help. It allows you to recover data from almost all situations when a hard drive is dying or facing logical problems.

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Support recovering data from the following problematic hard drive:

Hard drive becomes RAW, cannot open.
Hard drive is not formatted with errors.
Hard drive corrupted, not readable.

Tutorial: Use Deep Data Recovery to recover data from inaccessible hard drive

The scanning process may take a bit longer than usual due to the drive's condition, as a dying hard drive can have bad sectors or errors. Be patient as the software attempts to scan and locate all your data.

Step 2. Boot from the bootable USB

Connect a bootable disk to the non-booting PC, enter the BIOS settings by pressing F2, and set the boot sequence to prioritize the disk over the hard drive. Save the changes and exit BIOS. This should allow the PC to boot from the disk.

1. Select the scan type and click "Next".

2. To recover your lost data, select the drive where the data was lost and click on the "Scan" button.

3. Select the files you want to recover and click "Recover". Then, choose a secure location to save them.

STEP 2. Hard drive slows down but works as normal? Backup data.

For those with a failing hard drive, there are various options for backup. Qiling, a free backup software, is a popular choice among home users and small businesses, offering most features at no cost, including backing up disk/partition, files, and system.

STEP 3. Hard drive corrupted, growing bad sectors? Replace it with a new one.

When your hard drive has too many bad sectors, it's best to replace it with a new one to prevent further data loss, especially if data recovery software can't even run a quick scan.

To clone a failing hard drive with all data to an external hard drive or a new hard drive, you can use Qiling Disk Copy.

STEP 4: Revive a dying hard drive

After saving all useful files and data to a secure storage device, your next step is to try and revive the dying disk. One possible way to do this is by trying out various troubleshooting methods one by one. This may involve checking for any physical damage, running disk checks and scans, or even attempting to repair or reformat the disk.

Method 1. Change power cables and SATA cables, and turn on ATA/SATA in BIOS

To troubleshoot the issue, try reconnecting your hard drive to your PC and then enable ATA/SATA in your BIOS settings. This should help determine if the hard drive is functioning properly.

Shut down the PC and unplug the data cable from the hard drive properly.
Reconnect the hard drive with data and power cables.
Restart PC and press F2 to enter BIOS.
To resolve the issue of a not detected hard drive, enter the Setup menu and check if the hard drive is turned off in System Setup. This can be done by referring to the system documentation for specific instructions on how to access and configure the Setup menu for your particular device.
If it's Off, turn it ON in System Setup.
To verify the hard drive is recognized by your PC and accessible in Windows Explorer, you can simply reboot your computer. Once it's turned back on, look for your hard drive in the File Explorer.

If Windows Update fails to install the drivers, restart the PC and Windows will automatically reinstall the drivers from the hard drive. If this doesn't work, you can continue with the next steps.

Method 2. Update the hard drive drivers

Click the "Start" button, type: Device Manager, and hit Enter.
Select Device Manager, expand categories to find the name of your hard drive, and right-click it. Then, select "Uninstall device" to remove the driver.
Select "Update Driver".

Select "Search automatically for updated driver software".
If Windows can't find a new driver for your drive, you can find the latest one on the device manufacturer's website.
If the above steps don't work, try re-installing the drivers by going to Device Manager, right-clicking on your hard drive, and selecting "Roll Back Driver" or "Uninstall".

To resolve the issue, simply restart the PC, and Windows will automatically reinstall the necessary drivers from the hard drive.

Method 3. Test and check if the bad sectors are overtaking the disk

You can use Qiling Partition Master Free's Surface Test feature to check for bad sectors on your disk. If more than 20% of the disk is affected, it may lead to slow performance.

Method 4. Repair the hard drive under the warranty

When a hard drive has over 50% of its sectors failing, it's nearing the end of its lifespan and may not be able to function properly anymore.

Your best choice is to take your hard drive to the customer service center and get warranty service.